Two years ago during the G-20 Summit, a spokesman for Russian president Vladimir Putin reportedly said that Britain was a “small island no one listens to.” British Prime Minister David Cameron accepted the official line from the Russians that such remarks were not made, but nevertheless responded with a robust defense of the United Kingdom. “Britain may be a small island”, he said, “but I would challenge anyone to find a country with a prouder history, a bigger heart, or greater resilience.” He focused on this small island doing its bit in being resolute throughout World War II in the...

A former national security adviser to President Bill Clinton wrote an email to Hillary Clinton in 2009 advising the then-secretary of state how to deal with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu if he continued to “be the obstacle” in negotiations with Palestinians. The email from Samuel Berger advised Clinton on how to navigate the waters with Netanyahu and Palestinian leader Abu Mazen. “Going forward, if Bibi continues to be the obstacle, you will need to find the ground from which you can make his politics uneasy,” the September 22 email said. “I think you can do that even with current...

Donald Trump is taking the 2016 Presidential campaign by storm! Trump, who would be a bold defender of conservative principles in the White House, announced on Twitter who is pick for Attorney General is. His choice is South Carolina conservative Rep. Trey Gowdy (R), who continues to Chair the U.S. House of Representative’s Select Committee on Benghazi. Gowdy has been a consistent thorn in the side of the Obama administration, exposing the White House’s incompetence on issues ranging from amnesty, IRS abuses, and the illegal deletion of then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s emails. As Trump tweeted, “@HillaryClinton’s toast. Dems had...

HyperinflationOver the years, we have repeatedly poked fun at the transformation of Venezuela into a "socialist utopia" - an economy in a state of terminal collapse, where the destruction of the currency (one black market Bolivar is now worth 107 times less than the official currency's exchange rate) and the resulting hyperinflation is only matched be barren wasteland that local stores have transformed into now that conventional supply chains are irreparably broken. Just this past Wednesday we showed a clip of what is currently taking place inside Venezuela supermarkets, noting that "the hyperinflationary collapse in Venezuela is reaching its terminal...

"Let me explain first of all — this is Europe's problem much more than ours, OK?" Trump told CNN during a trip to Scotland. "And Europe isn't complaining as much as we are. But this is more of a Europe problem," Trump continued. "And when Europe comes to us and says, 'We want your help, we want your help,' but they're not really doing that. They're dealing with Russia, they're taking in the gas, they're taking in the oil — they're not really doing that. And you know, we're making a big deal out of it." "But why isn't Germany...

Video emerges of Red Bull Flugtag competition showing men apparently in blackface makeup, one dressed as US president, chasing banana off a ramp The recent scrutiny of racism in World Cup host Russia has expanded to include the world’s largest energy drink brand, after a video from a Red Bull event in Moscow showed a Barack Obama impersonator chasing a banana. The controversy emerged over a highlights video from last week’s Red Bull Flugtag competition, in which participants send whimsical “flying” machines crashing off a ramp into water. In the video, at least four shirtless men who appeared to be...

France has agreed to pay compensation to Russia for cancelling the sale of two warships, a Russian official says. France stopped the sale after the outbreak of the conflict in eastern Ukraine, where Russia is accused of backing separatist rebels. The Mistral contract was worth Â€1.2bn (ÂŁ843m; $1.3bn). Russia made an advance payment of about Â€840m. The first of two helicopter carriers - the Vladivostok - was supposed to be delivered to Russia in November 2014. "The negotiations are completely finished, everything has already been decided, both the time-frame and the amount," said Vladimir Kozhin, an aide to Russian President...

Iran's enemies unsettled by its deal with the West, but Bashar al-Assad of Syria says it is 'a great victory' The nuclear deal with Iran caused fury in Israel and consternation around the region at the likely increase in influence and resources of a newly enriched Iran. Most telling was the loudest expression of support. "I am happy that the Islamic Republic of Iran has achieved a great victory by reaching an agreement," President Bashar al-Assad of Syria said in a message to his Iranian opposite number, Hassan Rouhani. "In the name of the Syrian people, I congratulate you and...

WASHINGTON — A rare gap in the presence of a U.S. aircraft carrier in the Persian Gulf this fall could hinder military capabilities in the war against the Islamic State, the Obama administration’s nominee to lead the Navy told the Senate Thursday. Adm. John Richardson conceded the effects of a two-month gap in carrier presence — the first since 2007 — under intense questioning from Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., as the Senate Armed Services Committee weighs whether approve the admiral’s nomination as chief of naval operations. “Without that carrier, that will be a detriment to our capability, yes, sir,” Richardson...

Just half a month after the Iran nuclear deal was signed in Vienna on July 14, the Islamic republic of Iran announced on Thursday that it plans to build two new nuclear facilities in its southeastern Makran region on the Indian Ocean. Mohammad Ahmadian, Deputy Head of the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran (AEOI), announced the plans as quoted by the semi-official Fars News Agency. “Two 100MW (megawatt) nuclear reactors will be constructed on Makran coastline of the Sea of Oman to generate electricity,” Ahmadian declared. […] The nuclear deal stipulates that Iran will not build any new uranium enrichment...

The top U.S. military officer supported a proposed nuclear deal with Iran on Wednesday, saying it reduced the risk of Tehran developing atomic arms while buying time to work with allies to confront the Islamic Republic over other "malign activities." Army General Martin Dempsey, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, told a Senate hearing he had advised the White House to keep sanctions on Iran's ballistic missile program and arms trafficking for "as long as possible." The deal between Iran and the United States, China, Russia, Britain and France would lift the ban on ballistic missile technology for eight...

Iran is about to conclude a transaction with China for the purchase of the Chengdu J-10 multirole jet fighter, known in the West as the Vigorous Dragon, according to an exclusive report from DEBKAfile’s military and intelligence sources. Beijing has agreed to sell Tehran 150 of these sophisticated jets. While the Chinese J-10 is comparable to the US F-16, our sources report that it is virtually a replica of the Lavi, the super-fighter developed by Israel’s aerospace industry in the second half of the 80s. Israel sold China the technology, after Washington insisted on Its discontinuing the Lavi’s production. The...

His pitch is simple: he says he will be America’s greatest selling point. “I think I would just get along very well with Vladimir Putin. I just think so. People say, ‘What do you mean?’ I just think we would ... Obama and him, he hates Obama. Obama hates him. We have unbelievably bad relationships. Hillary Clinton was secretary of state, she was the worst secretary of state in the history of our country. The world blew apart during her reign, now she wants to be president.” His global strategy is also simple: “I’d make our military much stronger and...

ThereÂ’s aircraft designers, and then thereÂ’s ace designers. There are thousands of engineers around the world producing planes, but ace designers only come along once every few decades. The United States had Kelly Johnson, the designer of the SR-71 Blackbird. GermanyÂ’s Willy Messerschmitt produced a line of famous fighter planes. The Soviet UnionÂ’s Mikhail Simonov created the muscular Su-27 fighter-bomber to compete with AmericaÂ’s F-15 Eagle. Each of these aces were highly skilled, but they also owed much of their success to circumstance. They came along when their respective governments invested millionsâ€ŠÂ—â€Šor billionsâ€ŠÂ—â€Šof dollars into transforming brainpower into cutting-edge combat...

"The document warns that 'preparations' for an attack in India are underway and predicts that an attack will provoke an apocalyptic confrontation with America," the report said. The ISIS is preparing to attack India to provoke an Armageddon-like confrontation with the US, according to an internal recruitment document of the feared group which also seeks to unite the Pakistani and Afghan Taliban into a single army of terror. An investigative story published yesterday by the USA Today and reported by American Media Institute refers to a 32- page Urdu document obtained from a Pakistani citizen with connections inside the Pakistani...

The White House did not pursue the nuclear agreement with Iran as an international treaty, because getting U.S. Senate advice and consent for a treaty has “become physically impossible,” Secretary of State John Kerry told lawmakers on Tuesday. At a House Foreign Affairs Committee hearing on the agreement known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), Kerry was asked about the administration’s approach of seeking a political accord between governments rather than an international treaty. Rep. Reid Ribble (R-Wisc.) recalled Kerry saying earlier in the hearing that if Congress rejects the JCPOA, other countries will in the future not...

(LEAD) Scud missiles fired into Saudi Arabia from Yemen traced to N. Korea: official 2015/07/29 18:16 (ATTN: UPDATES with comment by South Korean official; ADDS background) SEOUL, July 29 (Yonhap) -- Scud missiles fired into Saudi Arabia by Yemeni rebels in recent months came from North Korea, a South Korean intelligence official said Wednesday, in the latest case that illustrated North Korea's support for the weapons programs of some countries in the Middle East. Saudi Arabia has shot down about 40 percent of some 20 Scud missiles fired by Yemen's Houthi rebels, said the official, who is familiar with the...

The U.S. Department of Justice has been asked to open a criminal investigation into former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton's mishandling of classified information in emails she sent through her unauthorized, insecure private email server.

Sweden says a submarine wreck found last week in its territorial waters was most likely Russian World War I submarine the Som, which sank after colliding with a Swedish ship in 1916. Swedish Armed Forces spokesman Jesper Tengroth says investigators on Tuesday analyzed video footage provided by the diving company that found the wreck.

"The polonium trail started on 16 October 2006 when Litvinenko met Lugovoi and Kovtun in London. ..." "When Lugovoi and Kovtun's movements were mapped against the sites of polonium contamination, there was an exact match. The evidence of guilt was strong. In May 2007, the then Director of Public Prosecutions Ken Macdonald announced that Andrei Lugovoi was to be charged with murder and his extradition would be sought from Russia. Kovtun was charged in 2010. ..." Prof Norman Dombey, a physicist who has a deep knowledge of Russian nuclear sites, gave evidence at the public inquiry. Dombey says there is...

The story certainly seemed like a blockbuster: A criminal investigation of Hillary Rodham Clinton by the Justice Department was being sought by two federal inspectors general over her email practices while secretary of state. It’s hard to imagine a much more significant political story at this moment, given that she is the leading candidate for the Democratic nomination for president. The story – a Times exclusive — appeared high on the home page and the mobile app late Thursday and on Friday and then was displayed with a three-column headline on the front page in Friday’s paper. The online headline...

With the turmoil in Greece proving once and for all that in the absence of a fiscal union, the EMU simply cannot function or if it does, it will be subject to episodic crises stemming from endemic differences of opinion on fiscal policy, outsiders could be forgiven for looking upon the currency experiment as an abject failure. Indeed, the struggle to secure a bridge loan for Athens last week underscored the degree to which non-euro countries are reluctant to put their taxpayers on the hook for problems which they believe are the result of an ill-fated attempt to unite fundamentally...

The Russian government has approved a draft bill that would allow it to seize foreign state assets, without warning. The move is seen as a tit-for-tat gesture, following Western court cases involving Russian firms. According to the new draft bill, Russia will be able to seize foreign state assets from countries which infringe on Russia’s jurisdictional immunity, according to the Russian press. The Ministry of Justice said the new law is meant to bring parity to the existing "jurisdictional imbalance" between Russia and other countries. In other words, Russia will now seize the state assets of other countries in proportion...

Suppose we had a war and Britain didn’t come? Which is sort of what happened in Syria when President Obama, on the advice of Samantha Power, United States Ambassador to the United Nations, declared that we must go in now, this afternoon. No time to discuss. Much as we had heard before in the maelstrom which is the Middle East. Surely, our allies, by which I think we mean Europe, the Atlantic Alliance or “the West,” led of course by our trusty sidekick, Britain, will fall in line. But overnight, the British Parliament voted to just say no. And we...

Vladimir Putin has fired 110,000 people. The Russian president signed a decree two weeks ago that reduced the number of full-time employees in the interior ministry of Russia by about 10% — or 110,000 people. Most of the cuts will be to administrative staff. It will bring the total number of employees in the agency down to just above 1 million, according to CNN Money. The interior ministry is in charge of the Russian police, paramilitary security forces, and road-traffic safety. The interior ministry's press service also told RIA Novosti that these reduction plans would affect the management structure at...

Secretary of State John Kerry had an “intense exchange” when he tried to sell the Iran nuclear deal to skeptical Jewish leaders in New York on Friday.A day after GOP senators blasted him for getting “fleeced” by Iran, Kerry faced another tough crowd in a closed-door meeting with about 120 Jewish leaders at the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations.“It was very intense exchange, serious exchange,” the group’s vice chairman, Malcolm Hoenlein, told The Post.Kerry spoke from a podium and fielded pointed questions from a crowd of Israel supporters concerned that the deal could allow Iran to get...

The latest controversy over Hillary Clinton's use of a personal email system while secretary of state is not only a possible drag on her presidential campaign, but it also creates a potential headache for Attorney General Loretta Lynch. The inspectors general for the State Department and intelligence community on Friday disclosed that an internal review of Clinton's system concluded some emails contained classified information and that the inspectors general had sent a non-criminal "referral" to the Justice Department over the matter.

The aviation branch of the Russian Navy will get more than 20 new ship-borne MiG-29K fighters by the end of 2015, the Defense Ministry’s press service said. MOSCOW (Sputnik) — The warplanes will serve as a backbone for a new aviation unit within the Northern Feet. "To boost the Navy’s aviation component, the work is underway to equip the Navy Aviation [branch] with MiG-29K. This work began in 2013 and will be finalized in 2015," the press service said in a statement, adding the Navy will get more than 20 MiGs. Russia has been stepping up its presence in the...

Valentyn Nalyvaichenko, former Ukrainian Security Service chief, in Washington, July 21, 2015 Ukraine’s former intelligence chief says Russia is financing and organizing training camps from within Ukraine’s rebel-controlled eastern provinces in order to destabilize the country. “Up to 30 camps in Donetsk, Luhansk and Crimea are training subversive groups, providing them with weapons and sending them on missions throughout Ukraine,” said Valentyn Nalyvaichenko, who ran the Ukrainian Security Service (SBU), the country’s successor to the Soviet-era KGB, until his forced resignation last month. “Local criminal gangs and separatists, together with Russian active duty troops, are all committing war crimes...

U.S. presidential candidate Hillary Clinton said on Saturday that she did not use a private email account to send or receive classified information while she was secretary of state, in response to a government inspector's letter this week. "I did not send nor receive anything that was classified at the time," Clinton said at a campaign stop in Iowa. The email controversy has dogged Clinton's bid for the presidency, fuelling worries that the frontrunner for the Democratic nomination has tried to sidestep transparency and record-keeping laws. At least four emails from the private email account that Clinton used while secretary...

Billionaire businessman Donald Trump on Saturday seized on new reports that former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton is under criminal investigation for her private email server, warning that “bad things have to happen.” “I don’t know how a person with that cloud over their head can actually be running for president,” Trump told a rally in Iowa. “If the prosecutors are honorable, if they’re fair, they’re just, sadly, bad things have to happen because what she did is very serious and very criminal,” he said.

One year after the Obama administration celebrated the removal of chemical weapons from Syria, U.S. intelligence agencies have determined that Bashar al-Assad’s regime did not relinquish all of its chemical weapons. The Wall Street Journal reported: An examination of last year’s international effort to rid Syria of chemical weapons, based on interviews with many of the inspectors and U.S. and European officials who were involved, shows the extent to which the Syrian regime controlled where inspectors went, what they saw and, in turn, what they accomplished. That happened in large part because of the ground rules under which the inspectors...

Minsk agreement - "the agreement on the division of Ukraine" The situation in Ukraine does not improve, the West should prepare for new activities in Russia, says Kurt Volker Kurt Volker - respected American expert on foreign policy. He began his career as a CIA analyst, then worked at the State Department, the National Security Council president, served as US Permanent Representative to NATO. Today, he heads the International Leadership Institute at Arizona State University, founded the influential Senator John McCain. In an interview with the Georgian service of "Voice of America" Iyo Meurmishvili, Kurt Walker shared his views on...

Turkey has said areas in north Syria cleared of fighters belonging to the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) group will become safe zones. Saturday’s announcement made by Mevlut Cavusoglu, the Turkish foreign minister, came after Ankara announced it had begun bombing ISIL positions in Syria and and Kurdish fighters' camps in northern Iraq. "When areas in northern Syria are cleared of the (ISIL) threat, the safe zones will be formed naturally," Cavusoglu told a news conference. The conflict in Syria has displaced more than 10 million people, with many residing in makeshift camps near the Turkish border.These...

Hillary Clinton accepted on Friday an invitation to testify before the House Select Committee on Benghazi in October. Chairman Trey Gowdy asked Clinton to appear before the committee earlier this week, according to campaign spokesman Nick Merrill. Merrill also disputed media reports that Clinton had handled classified information improperly on her private email server, which prompted two inspectors general to refer the matter to the Justice Department for a possible criminal investigation. "Friday began with the printing of a story that was false," Merrill said in a statement. "Entities from the highest levels of two branches of government have now...

The Akula-class nuclear submarine is the biggest in the world. Source: Oleg Kuleshov At the end of June the Dmitry Donskoi nuclear submarine left Severodvinsk, the principal base of the Northern Fleet. It entered the White Sea on a mission, one objective of which is to interact with Russia's antisubmarine forces. This is a unique vessel. The submarines of this series (Project 941, or Typhoon, according to NATO's classification) are considered the biggest in the world. Their length of 124 meters is comparable to two football fields, while the height of this naval predator is that of a nine-story building....

Ex-Soviet Kyrgyzstan on Tuesday announced it was tearing up a long-running cooperation agreement with the United States after Washington awarded a rights prize to a jailed ethnic minority campaigner. Central Asian Kyrgyzstan and the United States inked a cooperation deal in 1993 and the strategically located nation hosted a key US military base supplying the war effort in Afghanistan until 2014. Kyrgyzstan, however, has pursued a strongly pro-Russian foreign policy since incumbent President Almazbek Atambayev was elected in 2011. Washington warned Monday that any move to sever the agreement “could put assistance programs that benefit the Kyrgyzstani people in jeopardy”....

July 23, 2015 The Obama administration formally announced that inspectors general will have to get permission from their agency heads to gain access to grand jury, wiretap and fair credit information — an action that severely limits the watchdogs’ oversight capabilities, independence and power to uncover fraud. An opinion, issued by the Department of Justice's Office of Legal Counsel, says the Inspector General Act of 1978 — which was written by Congress to create the government watchdogs in order to help maintain integrity within their agencies — does not have the authority to override nondisclosure provisions in other laws, most...

The Soviet-era Tu-22M3 bomber entered service in 1989 but has been modernised since then Russian defence ministry sources say a squadron of Tupolev Tu-22M3 long-range bombers will be based in Crimea - but experts question the strategic value of such a move for Russia. Russia's Interfax news agency reported the plan, quoting an unnamed ministry source, though it has not been officially confirmed. Other Russian media also reported it. Russia has previously pledged to beef up its military forces in Crimea, which has been internationally isolated since Russia annexed it from Ukraine in March 2014. Western nations imposed sanctions on...

Secretary of State John Kerry sat down with Matt Lauer for an interview on Today earlier, defending the deal with Iran — and telling Israel to cool their jets, almost literally. In doing so, Kerry managed to turn Israel into the aggressor and Iran into a passive actor who might somehow decide they need a bomb only if Israel attacked them. It’s a strange reversal, and one that confirms the impression that the Obama administration has become the lawyers for the mullahs (via Jeff Dunetz): Lauer points out to Kerry that opposition to the Iran deal encompasses practically the whole...

High quality global journalism requires investment. Please share this article with others using the link below, do not cut & paste the article. See our Ts&Cs and Copyright Policy for more detail. Email ftsales.support@ft.com to buy additional rights. http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/e1243662-2c67-11e5-acfb-cbd2e1c81cca.html#ixzz3gmnryuF4 The recruiter in central Syria did not hide the grim facts behind his job offer: Around half of those who joined his new militia to support President Bashar al-Assad’s forces would be likely to die. But the pay was about $200 a month — a windfall in the war-torn country. “It sounded like a suicide mission, but about 100 of us...

US Secretary of State John Kerry indirectly conceded that the US would defend Iran's nuclear program from Israeli sabotage on Thursday, in a hearing at the Senate Foreign Relations Committee in which he was grilled over the deal reached last Tuesday. Senator Marco Rubio (R-FL) put Kerry on the spot when he asked him and Secretary of Energy Ernest Moniz whether the controversial articles in Annex III on page 142 of the 159-page deal would stipulate that the US block Israeli attempts to scupper the Iranian nuclear threat. The articles in question state that the US, world powers and the...

Israel has delivered 16 Cobra helicopter gunships to Jordan to help the Hashemite kingdom deal with the threat of Islamic State (ISIS) which currently control large areas along its borders with Syria and Iraq. The transfer provided at no cost was kept in secret since last year but was recently leaked by an unnamed U.S. official and published by Reuters. Jordanian and Israeli officials declined comment, as did the Pentagon. The handover of helicopters was approved by Washington, after blocking an earlier Israeli plan to sell the surplus helicopters to Nigeria, which is also battling Islamic insurgents in Central Africa....

This is what belt-tightening looks like in Russia: Vladimir Putin has fired 110,000 government officials at a stroke. The Russian president signed a decree last week limiting the number of staff employed by the Interior Ministry to just over one million. That requires massive layoffs that will bring total headcount down by 10%.

A district court judge from Russia’s Udmurtia republic was dismissed from his post this week for posting an anti-Semitic remark on Facebook two years ago. At the time, Ivan Orsinin uploaded a picture of a burning mosque to his Facebook page with the following caption: “You can look endlessly at three things: flowing water, sparkling stars and a burning mosque.” In a comment below the picture, the judge added “and the Jews burning,” an anti-Semitic statement that also has clear Holocaust overtones. …

The abandoned hangar is located at the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan. The Cosmodrome is miles away and still in operation today. Because the NASA Space Program was recently shut down, this is the only area that astronauts can make their way up to the International Space Station via Russian Soyuz space shuttles. This hangar in particular is from a previous time when the Russians and the Americans were competing in a race for space exploration.

At China’s very farthest limits, a town sandwiched between North Korea and Russia stands at the heart of Beijing’s plan to revitalise its bleak, frigid northeastern rust belt. Beijing has a vision of turning the nondescript outpost of Hunchun into a regional Asian trading hub and is spending tens of billions of dollars to turn it into reality. Less than 70 km away in North Korea, the port of Rason offers access to the sea and a shorter trade route to Japan, one of China’s biggest trading partners, than almost any of its own harbours. But the ambitious plan relies...

In defiance of the international arms embargo, Iran last week placed an order with Moscow for a huge fleet of 100 Russian IL78 MKI tanker aircraft (NATO: Midas) for refueling its air force in mid-flight, thereby extending its range to 7,300 km. This is reported exclusively by debkafile from its military and intelligence sources. The transaction runs contrary to the terms of the nuclear accord the six world powers and Iran signed in Vienna earlier this month. These tanker planes can simultaneously refuel six to eight warplanes. Their acquisition brings Israel, 1.200km away – as well the rest of the...

President Barack Obama said at a Democratic fundraiser in New York on Tuesday evening that he had “ended two wars” during his presidency. In its recently released human rights report on Iraq, however, the State Department said that the Iraqi government had “lost effective control” over a large part of Iraqi territory to the Islamic State terrorist group. Also, according to the State Department’s Country Reports on Terrorism 2014, the group that the administration now calls ISIL was founded in the 1990s by Abu Musab al-Zarqawi and fought against U.S. forces in Iraq before Obama removed U.S. troops from that...